The Twin Who Came Second

You came first. Four minutes. That's all it took for you to claim the title of oldest and never let me forget. We wore matching outfits until we were old enough to refuse. We shared a room, a face, a birthday cake with our names crowded together like an apology for not giving us separate days. Being someone's sister is one thing. Being your sister is a mirror that talks back. I see myself in your laugh. I hear myself in your anger. And when you cry— which you hate, which you hide, which you do in the bathroom with the fan on— I feel it in my own chest like a sound that travels through walls. We fought about everything— the front seat, the last cookie, whose friend was whose first— because when you share a beginning, you spend the rest of your life trying to prove you're a separate story. But we're not. Not really. We're the same story told from two directions. And when the world gets too loud, you are the only person who can look at me and say nothing and mean everything because you've known me since before knowing was a choice. Four minutes apart. A whole life side by side. And I would choose you even if biology hadn't chosen first.